tack, which may be described as the
preliminary line for the defence of Jerusalem. The 180th and 181st
Brigades were already on the move, and some of the 53rd Division had
marched by the main road outside the Holy City's walls to positions
from which they were to attempt to drive the enemy off the Mount of
Olives. The 180th Brigade, fresh and strong but still wet and muddy,
went forward rapidly over the boulders on the hills east of the wadi
Beit Hannina and occupied the rugged height of Shafat at half-past
one. Shafat is about two miles north of Jerusalem. In another
half-hour they had driven the Turks from the conical top of Tel el
Ful, that sugar-loaf hill which dominates the Nablus road, and which
before the end of the year was to be the scene of an epic struggle
between Londoner and Turk. The 181st Brigade, on debouching from
the suburbs of Jerusalem north-east of Lifta, was faced with heavy
machine-gun and rifle fire on the ridge running from the western edge
of the Mount of Olives across the Nablus road through Kh. es Salah.
On the left the 180th Brigade lent support, and at four o'clock the
2/21st and 2/24th Londons rushed the ridge with the bayonet and drove
off the Turks, who left seventy dead behind them. The London Division
that night established itself on the line from a point a thousand
yards north of Jerusalem and east of the Nablus road through Ras
Meshari to Tel el Ful, thence westwards to the wadi behind the
olive orchards south of Beit Hannina. The 74th Division reached its
objective without violent opposition, and its line ran from north of
Nebi Samwil to the height of Beit Hannina and out towards Tel el
Ful. The 53rd Division was strongly opposed when it got round the
south-east of Jerusalem on to the Jericho road in the direction of
Aziriyeh (Bethany), and it was necessary to clear the Turks from the
Mount of Olives. Troops of the Welsh Division moved round the Holy
City and drove the enemy off the Mount, following them down the
eastern spurs, and thus denied them any direct observation over
Jerusalem. The next day they pushed the enemy still farther eastwards,
and by the night of the 10th held the line from the well at Azad, 4000
yards south-east of Jerusalem, the hill 1500 yards south of Aziriyeh,
Aziriyeh itself, to the Mount of Olives, whence our positions
continued to Ras et Tawil, north of Tel el Ful across the Nablus road
to Nebi Samwil. This was our first line of positions for the defence
o